Essay by Charles Waldweim
Via Design Observer, Nov 4, 2010
“Notes Toward a History of Agrarian Urbanism” is excerpted from Bracket 1: On Farming, edited by Mason White and Maya Przybylski, and just published by Actar.

Excerpt:

While much has been written about the implications of urban farming for agricultural production, public policy, and food as an element of culture, little has been written about the potentially profound implications for the shape and structure of the city itself. To date the enthusiasm for slow and local food has been based, on the one hand, on the assumption that abandoned or underused brownfield sites could be remediated for their productive potential; and on the other it has been based on the trend toward conserving greenfield sites on city peripheries — on dedicating valuable ecological zones to food production and to limiting suburban sprawl.

MANILA, Philippines – In a bid to address the malnutrition woes among schoolchildren, the Quezon City (QC) government is aggressively promoting urban farming and gardening in the city’s public schools.

According to Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista, the school-based urban farming project is being pushed to minimize if not totally eradicate child hunger among public schoolchildren.

Medical experts in the past have correlated malnutrition as one of the major causes on the child’s sub-par academic performance level in school. This prompted the city government to come up with measures to reduce if not altogether resolve the problem of malnutrition.